1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to leaf gathering machines and to leaf balers and, more particularly, to an apparatus that will gather, crush, compress, and bale leaves and other debris.
2. Technical Background
The gathering and disposal of leaves is an essential activity to maintain the cleanliness and appearance of a variety of public lands, golf courses, and homes, including lawns and natural areas. Leaf gathering and disposal usually occurs in the fall in the northern hemisphere but can occur at other times of the year if plant-like material accumulates, such as pine cones, pine needles, tall grasses, shrubbery, weeds, and the like. Leaves and other related yard debris are usually separated from garbage and general household trash. Leaves and other yard debris can be used for composting so that landfill space is reserved for trash that is not suitable for composting. A common method of gathering and disposing of leaves by homeowners is to rake the leaves and to place them into trash bags, which is a burdensome chore. Raking leaves, picking them up, and placing them in bags is stressful work and is often beyond the ability of many older individuals or individuals with compromised health.
In some communities, the homeowners can rake leaves into a pile on the side of the street. Generally the leaves and other yard materials are deposited in a window adjacent to or on the edge of the street. A vehicle with a collection bin and a vacuum pickup the leaves and yard debris and hold these materials in a bin. The vacuum pickup is usually manipulated manually while gathering leaves. The bin tends to fill rapidly because in this process the leaves are not compressed. When the bin is fill, the machine stops gathering leaves and moves to a disposal site or transfer station where the bin is unloaded. During transport and unloading, the machine is not available to pickup leaves, which limits the rate at which leaves can be picked up and removed throughout the day.
Full capacity bagger attachments are known for use on lawn moving machines. Some or these employ an auger to feed leaf material into a bag and compress the material in the bag. These mowing machines have limited capacity to pickup leaves. They are slow and frequently plug with leaves. Once the bag is full, the mowing machine is stopped, the operator dismounts from the machine, closes the bag manually, removes the filled bag from the machines, mounts an empty bag in position to be filled, and then returns to the machine to resume the leaf bagging operation. The stationary bagging machines and the bagger attachments for lawn mowing machines fill relatively small bags. All bags are handled manually after they are filled. The major drawbacks of these bagging machine systems are the cost of the bags and the fact that the systems can be relatively labor intensive.
Full capacity machines are known which will gather leaves, shred the leaves, deposit the leaves to an auger, and the auger will direct the leaves to a bag. In these machines, the leaf gathering mechanism is a paddle like device and the shredder employs knife-like elements. The drawbacks of devices such as these are that sticks and similar debris amongst the leaves can cause the gathering mechanism or the shredder to jam. Sticks and the like can also jam between the auger and its housing. The present invention overcomes these drawbacks by providing a leaf gathering, crushing, compacting, and baling system which does not require the use of an auger and will bale the leaves automatically without the use of a bag.